Pokki is a start menu replacement for Windows - and it has already been downloaded 1.5 million times for Windows 8. "Since the launch of Windows 8, we've seen over 1.5 million Pokki downloads on the new OS itself and users opening the Pokki Menu an average of 10 times a day. These early numbers demonstrate that users enjoy being able to instantly access and discover apps, straight from the desktop." And this is just one of the countless replacements. Microsoft should've never kept the traditional desktop in there - they've given users the ability to escape Metro, and this will only hurt the new environment.

However, if it's collecting the data without notifying the user or giving them the option to turn it off, it's spyware.

It's explained in no uncertain terms in section 2.a of their Privacy Policy at http://cdn.pokki.com/licenses/v2.0.2/privacy-policy.html but how many people actually read that stuff rather than, you know, just click through in order to to get past whatever is displayed on the screen as quickly as possible? ;-)

Well as I said, I haven't installed it so I didn't know if they had a policy or not.

And at least they do have an explicit policy; a lot of otherwise good software collects data without a policy or with it buried under pages and pages of legalese and no option to turn it off. On the other hand, there are a few standouts that offer this information up front and give you an option to to turn off data collection before they even let you use the program. VLC Media Player is a great example of that.